Visitors and Residents‏

Yesterday morning was sunny and calm after a light snowfall overnight. Great weather for my first photo outing after returning to Boulder from my Panama tour.

My friend Sharon and I wanted to see the Great Horned Owls that we have been tracking at Twin Lakes. While I was away, she had been watching one owl on its nest in a dead tree, but hadn’t seen the other one recently.

A Great Horned Owl on its Nest

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But then Sharon spotted the owl’s mate in another tree less than 50 feet from the nest.

A Great Horned Owl at Twin Lakes

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After these successes, we were up for more and moved on to Walden Ponds. For several months we had seen a lone Tundra Swan on Cottonwood Marsh there, but every time that Sharon or I had gone there the swan was too far away to photograph.

Yesterday we saw it first near the inaccessible north side of the pond. But as we watched the swan it came much closer, swimming among the ducks. Here it is surrounded by two Redheads.

A Tundra Swan and Friends

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The Great Horned Owls are long-term residents of Twin Lakes. But the Tundra Swan is a rare visitor. I had first seen it in the distance through a friend’s scope at Valmont Reservoir on January 8. Seeing a Tundra Swan here is an event, because in eastern Colorado it is well outside of its range. They generally breed in summer at the far north coast of Alaska and Canada and do migrate south. But here they are rare migrants.

This lone swan is lost and perhaps lonely in Boulder. But soon it will fly away north and join its brothers and sisters in the tundra.

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